Stuck on Stupid

Ever wonder what the fundamental difference between a conservative and a liberal are?  Ok, granted, this does sound like the setup for a really great joke, but seriously, have you ever stopped to consider what makes the conservative viewpoint so radically different than the liberal one?

 Sure, there are a lot of issues we tend to disagree on for various reasons, but I think the fundamental difference in philosphy can be summed up in just a single sentence.  Liberal's believe that government is the best solution to most problems, conservatives do not.

 Ok, now before anyone starts haraunging me with the excesses and government spending increases made recently by a republican controlled congress, please note that the terms "republican" and "conservative' are not interchangeable.  While it is true that by and large most republican's tend to be more conservative than most democrats, it does not automatically follow that all republican's are truely conservative or that everything that a congressional republican majority might do is considered to be in line with standard conservative thinkning on many policies.

So, with that having been said, I think it is safe to proceed with discussing the major difference between the conservative and liberal viewpoint, a truely conservative viewpoint states that government does not solve problems well and that other entities generally get much better results at much lower costs.  The liberal viewpoint seems to prefer that almost every problem must be passed along to the government in some way, shape or form for a solution.

This of course is a point of view I find most curious for many reasons, but simply put, when was the last time government ever solved a problem?  Look at a program like welfare, for example.  Has it solved the problem of poverty, particularly in the inner cities?  Has the problem gotten better or worse since the government got involved in administrating welfare?  Does it look like the problem is going to get better anytime soon, or does it look like it's been getting worse with each passing year of government administration?

Alright, maybe welfare is to much of a hotbutton - lets try something simpler.  Can you name a single government agency that you've had to deal with that you felt was:

A.  Well run and efficient

B.  Friendly and easy to deal with

C. Something you would recommend to your friends?

Hmm.. racked my brain for an hour, couldn't come up with one personally.  So, can you think of any government agency or program that has actually "solved" the problem it was invented to deal with?  Again, spent a great deal of time thinking this one over, couldn't come up with a single example.

And that, in a nutshell, is the biggest difference between conservative and liberal thought.  For all of the complaints you hear about "evil corporations" I think you'll find that when you compare most corporations against govenment the corporations come out as the lesser of two evils by far in almost every category, including corruption.  Yes folks, the truth is you can't trust our government to solve problems, because their not in the business of solving problems.

Why?  Because if the government agency solves a problem, guess what happens?  The agency itself no longer has a purpose to exist.  That's right folks, a government agency has no incentive to actually solve whatever problem it was created to deal with, if anything they have a tremendous incentive to make the problem worse.  You see, by making it worse they increase there budget.  Increased budget means higher salaries and more employees, more employees means less work for everyone concerned.  So the bigger you can make the problem, the better of you are in government service.

Something to think about, isn't it?

 

There seems to be a lot of confusion on the liberal left as to exactly what the First Amendment right to free speech means.  In a recent discussion with a decidedly liberal blogger I was told that I had to “respect his opinion”, after all we live in democracy!

Well, I didn’t bother to point out that we don’t actually live in a true democracy but rather a representative republic, after all if one can’t even understand the basic idea behind the First Amendment any more advanced concepts like this would doubtless be a fruitless topic of discussion to say the least.

But I was rather amused by this notion that a person’s opinion should be “respected” no matter how ignorant the opinion itself turned out to be once it had been properly examined.  This argument on it’s face is extremely easy to refute of course.  Take a look at the multitude of neo-nazi white supremacist web sites out there.  They voice the opinion that anyone who isn’t white is a member of a mongrel race that should be destroyed.

I for one have no respect for such an opinion.  Would anyone else care to go on record and say such an opinion is worthy of respect?  Naturally not.  Such an opinion has no basis in fact, is illogical in the extreme and deserves not respect but scorn.  So, obviously the notion that we should respect anyone’s opinion no matter how ridiculous it might seem obviously doesn’t pass the sniff test.

So what about the First Amendment?  The First Amendment simply guarantees that the government may not punish people for having or voicing such opinions, no matter how unpopular they might be at the time.  This was included in our bill of rights to allow for the free expression of ideas, something our founding fathers thought was very important.

However just because one is free to express any idea they wish by no means equates to the notion that every idea is equal, or that each ideal has some merit merely by it’s expression.  The poster that prompted this, for example, seemed to think that his statements that Israel had no right to attack Hamas positions in Gaza seemed to think that simply by posting this “idea” it was entitled to respect and shouldn’t be questioned.  He seemed to feel as if he should be able to post such ignorance and that if I respected democracy I would simply ignore such idiocy and not respond to it.

I simply have to shake my head at the colossal ignorance of it all.  No, such an idea is worthy of no more respect than the notion that there is such a thing as a “mongrel race”.  Neither opinions can be supported with fact, and both opinions are not only ignorant but can be dangerous, causing real physical harm to others if taken to an extreme.

So, while I might respect a persons right to voice such idiocy, in no way shape or form do I have to respect the idiocy itself.  Yes, you are guaranteed your right to say such things if you choose.  However nowhere does it state that you cannot be taken to task for making such idiotic statements. 

I know this has gotten to be a rather overused tactic, particularly among those who lean decidedly left on the political spectrum.  Whenever someone disagrees with you, rather than stating your case you simply hide behind the first amendment and try to demonize them as someone who wishes to impugn your right to free speech.

But don’t be fooled folks.  Take my most recent example, the poster who attempted this obfuscation with me – his ignorant ranting is still online for all to see.  At no point was his right to free speech in any jeopardy.  He simply took issue with the fact that not only did I voice an opposite opinion, mine could be supported by facts and his could not.

So, if you wish people to “respect” your opinions you had better be certain you can support what you say with a logical, factual argument.  Otherwise your still entitled to spout off any ignorant, unsupportable thing that crosses your mind at any given moment. However that doesn’t mean you have any sort of right that protects you from other people pointing out just how silly your opinion really is once examined in the light of day.

Isn’t America a great country?

Recently got into a discussion with “Onsunday”, a blogger over at tblog who apparently feels that Israel is evil for bombing terrorist bent on there destruction, and that they should be tried under the Geneva conventions for war crimes.  I’ve been attempting to educate Onsunday in some of the historical facts, perhaps give he/she/it a better understanding of what is actually taking place in the middle east, but in true liberal fashion rather than addressing facts or issues apparently the old “ignore all the facts and call the conservative hateful” routine was the route that they chose in responding to my comments.

Normally I don’t make a habit of responding to this sort of thing with a full blog, but in this case I did because Onsunday pretty much lays out the typical “liberal” mindset on this particular issue, and because a proper reply was going to take more room than comments would allow.  The words in italicized quotes are Onsunday’s last reply to me, and my response to each section will appear in the paragraph below it, please note that I have left the original misspellings in his comment in place so that I can’t be accused of “altering” his commentary.

“Thanks for the history lessons and all other lessons that you haven enlightened me with. “

Your quite welcome, happy to be of assistance.

“Firt and foremost everyone is entitled to their opinion, that's what makes life interesting, secondly the most important thing is to respect each other's opinion which apprently you seem to be a hot headed, one sided, hateful person.”

Not at all actually.  Yes, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but what you seem to ignore is the fact that I too happen to fit in that “everyone” category.  Secondly, I am under no obligation to respect your viewpoint at all.  Yes, I did once swear an oath to die for your freedom to express any misguided view you wish to express, and I still wholeheartedly believe you should be allow to express it.  However there is absolutely nothing in the First Amendment that says I have to respect it, agree with it, or not point out the major flaws in your logic when you do express it.  You see I have First Amendment rights too, which is yet another fact you seem to wish to ignore.

Now if you want me to respect your viewpoint, that is going to take a lot more effort on your part.  You’ve made it clear that you think the Palestinians should not be attacked under any circumstances by Israel because innocent civilians can and do get hurt.  You place the blame for this squarely on Israel’s shoulders, and your opinion is obviously not supported by the facts.  The fact is that groups like Hamas intentionally hide weapons and ammunition in schools and hospitals, and any Palestinians that have the temerity to complain are executed.  You see Hamas goes out of it’s way to put these innocents in harms way, a fact you are either unaware of or have chosen to ignore. 

Israel really doesn’t have a lot of options here.  They can either completely ignore the attacks and allow these terrorist groups to continue to murder their citizens with impunity, or they can counter attack and hopefully save some of their citizen’s lives as a result, but in doing so they know that innocent Palestinians will run the risk of getting hurt or killed.  But it isn’t Israel that is the aggressor in this situation, nor are they the ones intentionally  putting citizens in harms way.  But hey, if you can think of a way that Israel can protect it's citizens without harming any Palestinians I'm all ears.  

 “I am not going to defend what I've said in here, ,nothing I said reflecte what you have understood and interpret but then again when we are totally one sided we tend to interpret things the way we want and suit us.”

If you can’t defend your position with facts, then what makes you think it is entitled to respect?  You see, this is a fairly common failing I’ve found among those with a liberal mindset.  You’ve convinced yourself your right, and that your views make you a “good person”.  You show “compassion” for the Palestinian’s, and that makes you good.  Since I disagree with you, that makes me evil.  That is in essence the point you’ve tried to make with your response, and it’s not something you can deny.  The moment I disagreed with you I became “hateful”, “hotheaded”, ad infinitum. 

The closest I have come to “insulting” you is to point out that you are most ignorant of the facts on this topic.  That however is not something I consider to be a personal attack, but rather a simple statement of fact.  There’s nothing hateful about pointing out someone else’s ignorance.  Goodness knows there are a lot of topics I’m quite ignorant about, however, this just doesn’t happen to be one of them.

So perhaps you might wish to take a real good look in the mirror and ask yourself why so much of your own self worth is tied up in your political beliefs, a set of beliefs that are so obviously not supported by facts.  Yes, I do have sympathy for the rank and file Palestinians, just as you do.  However that sympathy does not extend to terrorist groups like Hamas, because they don’t deserve it.  But unlike you I can also have compassion for the Israeli’s.  They have a right to exist just as the Palestinian’s do, and they shouldn’t have to live in constant fear of Islamofacist’s who want to kill them simply because they exist.  Yes, it is tragic that when they are forced to defend themselves civilians get hurt.  But that doesn’t prevent me from seeing that the majority of the blame for those deaths falls squarely on the shoulders of groups like Hamas.  They are the one’s instigating these attacks, killing innocent civilians, and putting there own people in harms way for added PR value.  You apparently can gloss over these facts, I however, cannot.

“on the subject of Muslim Shiit and Suni, I am sure you must know why there are catholics and Prspetarian or what have you? All I see from your words is this: you are one of those people who call Muslims Terrorists and make fun of their religion. See that's where the problem rest, and as long as we have people like you we will never see a day where Palestanian and Israelis can leave in harmony..I hope our new government will have a different understanding approach to deal with this human tragedy..”

Ok, not much of a parallel here.  The last big spat between protestant and catholic occurred back in the middle ages, and since then we’ve pretty much managed to settle most of our major differences.  We may not always agree with each other, but were not out there killing each other in wholesale fashion over a dispute that’s a few hundred years old.  I’ve never had to worry about some whacky Lutheran and a group of his buddies taking me hostage and cutting off my head just because I disagree with some minor tenant of their faith.  Again the facts simply don’t support your position. 

Also you might wish to note that this completely obfuscates and ignores the entire point, the fact that for well over a thousand years the Shiites and Sunni’s have been at each others throats and they seem to have absolutely no compunction about settling what are in essence very old and minor grievances with deadly physical force.  This is simply not the hallmark of reasonable people.  And if they still can’t even allow such minor differences of opinion within their own ranks, what on earth makes you think that they will ever come to accept and tolerate people who have a widely differing viewpoint?  The truth is you cannot reason with unreasonable people, and these militant Islamofacist groups pretty much take the cake as far as being unreasonable people is concerned.

Now, for the "peacful" followers of Islam out there, be you Shiite, Sunni, et al.  The problem here is not necessarily your chosen religion.  The probelm is that your chosen religion has been hijacked by fanatics, and that the majority of you remain silent.  Sure, you'll raise cane if somebody looks at you crosseyed at an airport, but where are you when Hamas starts firing rockets into Israel?  Why aren't you all over the place protesting that, that these fanatics are doing this in your name?  When I start seeing that sort of outcry from "peaceful" followers of Islam you'll have my support.  Until then, I'm afraid you'll simply have to cope with the fact that most of us non-muslims don't have a lot of trust or faith in your motives.  But honestly, can you blame us?

 Hope that clarifies my point.

I was reading a absolutely outstanding blog entry from Gary Graham over on Big Hollywood, in which he details a letter his cousin wrote to the Republican’s in Congress and the DNC.  After giving it a little thought myself, I realized that there are few things I’d like to say to to the Grand Ole Party myself, so here goes.

An Open Letter to the RNC, et al.

Having recently read a similar letter penned to you by another who votes primarily Republican, I decided to write you folks myself.  She began her letter with the following message to you, “Find your voice”.

Great message.  However, my own message is much closer to being in the form of a question or query than a helpful suggestion like the one she used.  My message to the RNC would be, “What the hell are you people thinking!”

First, you couldn’t find a better candidate to prop up than John McCain?  Good Lord people!  Ok, first of all no matter how many times you had John McCain use the words “I’m a conservative” in a sentence it just wasn’t going to work.  First thing your political brain trust should have realized is that conservatives are not sound byte driven, unlike our political opponents.  Saying black is white and up is down over and over and over again might work for a Democratic candidate, but unfortunately for you guys no matter how much you tried to get that sheep suit on Johnny truth is we always knew better.   Simply repeating a lie doesn’t make it true when your audience is conservative.  Again, that sort of nonsense works fine for liberals, but by their very nature conservatives are not the sort who are willing to ignore the truth for the sake of ideology.  One of the cornerstones of our ideology is to seek the truth, to make certain that our actions are based on that truth. 

And the truth is McCain has been selling us out for years.  Ok, don’t get me wrong, as a vet myself I respect his service in Vietnam.  But calling McCain a conservative is like saying Bill Clinton was a “little evasive but basically honest”.  It just doesn’t pass the sniff test, not by a long shot.  McCain has made a career of courting favorable press clippings not by “reaching across the aisle” but rather by pole vaulting over it and then waving from the other side with only one finger at those of us who are conservative.  I really think he thought that as a result the liberal media would continue to be oh so chummy with him during the election. 

Surprised John?  You shouldn’t be.  You sold us down the river with McCain Feingold, McCain Kennedy, etc, etc.  Every time you sold us out you made what you thought were friends with the mainstream media.  But when you went to call in that marker, guess what?  They sold you down the river.  Yup.  You sold us out for their “good will”, and they sold you out because that is part of their ideology.  To their way of thinking the ends justify the means. 

And yes, nominating Sarah Palin was a nice idea – most of us conservatives like her well enough.  In fact if it had been her against Obama maybe we might have had at least a chance of winning that last election.  But you?  You never had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning that election.  You squeaked through the nomination process only because Huckleberry Hound wouldn’t drop out of the primaries, guaranteeing that he and Romney would split the conservative vote just enough that you could slide in just above the bar, and it worked.

But John it’s sad that you spent huge sums of cash on those worthless political advisors of yours.  If they had been worth even 10 cents on the dollar of what you were spending they would have told you two things from the get go.  One, you can’t get elected to anything by people voting “against” your opponent.  You have to give your people, your base a reason to vote for you.  You never did.  They also would have told you that if your base voting block is conservative you can’t give them some snow job about being conservative if you’ve spent most of your career courting the favor of the liberal media and congress. 

How should you have handled that?  Simple – you should have come out and say, ok look, I was wrong about McCain Feingold.  Dead wrong.  I wanted to deal with corruption in the political process and unfortunately the bill I came up with was poorly written and badly implemented.  I didn’t see it at the time, but I learned my lesson.  Also, I was dead wrong about my pre-election stance on Immigration.  I screwed up.  Had you said that John you might have at least stood a chance.  But your political advisors told you otherwise, and as a result this election was over the minute you accepted the parties nomination.  See John, we conservatives are a funny lot.  We can be awfully forgiving when a guy owns up to an honest mistake.  What we can’t cope with is a guy who honestly thinks were stupid enough to believe the massive amount of BS you were trying to shovel with all that “no, I’m really a conservative and always have been” nonsense.  See John, I didn’t vote for you, I voted against Obama.  And you just can’t win elections that way.  Anybody who knows anything about politics should know that.  Apparently your advisors were utterly clueless in this regard.

Ok, so, hopefully the rest of you worthless overpriced bell hops who managed to hang on to your congressional/senate seats will take heed now.   We didn’t elect you so you could run of to Washington and pretend to be democrats, spending huge amounts of money on ridiculous crap that we don’t want or care about.  Lets face facts here guys, the only "conservative" thing any of you managed to do in the last 8 years was a watered down tax cut.  In the meantime you spent money like drunken sailors on so many pet projects and so much crap that we don’t care about like a adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, a program that most of us are firmly convinced won’t even exist anymore when we retire because both it and Social security are so badly broken that odds are good both will completely fail in my lifetime.  You were in charge for 8 years guys, and you got absolutely nothing done that was worth a damn. 

If you bozo’s want to keep your jobs you’d better pull your heads out of the terribly cramped and lightless orifice you’ve been storing them in for the last 8 years or so and start paying some attention to your parties base.  You won’t win elections without us, and honestly you haven’t done much for us in a very long time.  Remember the Contract with America?  It got a lot of you elected to office.  You are losing now because you aren’t honoring that contract and haven’t been for a very long time.

Want to win some elections?  Easy enough.  One, stop compromising on your principles.  Stop letting lobbyists sell you on the notion that illegal immigration is a good thing and that the status quo needs to be maintained.  Next election get a bunch of candidates together and make stopping illegal immigration and dealing with the immigration issue priority 1 in every election you run in.  If you convince the people that your going to finally get off your lazy butts and fix this problem you’ll win in a landslide.  If you keep ignoring the problem you’ll probably be the minority party for years to come.  Oh, and by “fix the problem” I mean no Amnesty, no nonsense, no more of this “just ignore the millions of illegal's already here who are draining our public resources and not paying into the system” kind of ideas you’ve floated before.  No, your going to actually promise to do something realistic about the problem, and then keep your promise and do it.  No more of this lip service nonsense.  That’s what got you into this mess in the first place.

Two, stop letting the democrats decide what is and isn’t “off limits” in regards to debate.  That’s a bunch of nonsense.  You have resources now you’ve never had before.  Blogs, Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity, and so many more.  The liberal media doesn’t have a stranglehold on information anymore, so start using these resources for goodness sake!  Start talking to bloggers and giving them interviews.  You know the New York Times is going to mess you over unless you sell out your conservative principles.  So you know what?  Stop talking to the Times and their ilk, completely.  Their never going to give you a fair shake anyway.  And if you and all your staff starts doing that, pretty soon the Times is in real trouble.  If the mainstream media won’t give you access to the people, then don’t give them access to you, it’s that simple.  Anything you say or do that isn’t part of their ultra liberal agenda is going to get demonized anyway, stop being stupid and handing your enemy more ammunition every time they start running low.  Cut off their access, completely.  Deal only with reputable purveyors of news and opinion, and tell these lying self serving weasels of the old media to go pound sand.

Three, start saying things that make sense and resonate with people.  When John McCain started talking about the economy it was like watching grass grow.  He droned on and on about taxes, and nobody got it.  This is a great example of the RNC’s biggest problem, you guys fall for that tried and true liberal tactic of class warfare every time.  You start talking taxes, they characterize it like the only people who will be paying those taxes are the rich, and everything you say after that falls on deaf ears.  Guys, first you need to get a firm grasp on the idea that when you start talking taxes your average joe thinks your talking about Income Taxes, period.  To him, that’s what you mean by taxes.  Guess what, if he’s used to getting a refund a tax “cut” isn’t such a big deal to him.  Ok, sure, nice to have, but so what, not going to make or break me either way.  Start showing people just how much their wallets are getting hit, and you’ll start gaining ground.  Keep up the same failed tactics of the past, and your going to remain the minority party for years to come.

You need to get out there and educate people on the fact that they are paying taxes on everything, and if their not paying taxes directly their paying them indirectly.  Get them to understand that every time anybody who is “rich” get’s there taxes raised, that means the working class is going to end up footing the bill because the prices of everything they buy or rent goes up.  The next time some RNC mouthpiece starts using that tired rhetoric about how the “rich” already pay 80-90% of the taxes, slap him and tell him to shut up.  That “message’ doesn’t work, and hasn’t for a very long time.  Get real with people.  Stop talking rhetoric and start explaining in simple terms how this stuff really works.  Guys, you have to know something is seriously wrong with your campaign when the only guy who managed to articulate a clear message on the tax issue was an out of work plumber who wasn’t even associated with the RNC in any way, shape or form.

Four.. put together a honest to goodness legislative agenda that is conservative and supports conservative principles, and then follow through with it.  If you do that you’ll start winning elections.  Keep up this nonsense your engaged in now and I doubt you’ll even be a major political party 20 years from now.  As it is it’s getting pretty hard to tell the difference between a lot of Republican’s and their democratic counterparts, and that, in a nutshell ladies and gentleman, is why your getting your butts handed to you election after election.  Ignore us at your own peril.

I have a friend or two who lean decidedly to the left, particularly on fiscal issues. For the most part we simply agree to disagree on such issues, but the other day I was catching up with one particular friend from Michigan and he started talking about Obama’s idea of raising taxes on the rich. I think he could actually hear my eyes roll over the phone.

Naturally he was poking fun, he’s delighted that the anointed one was appointed by our liberal media to run this great nation (hopefully not into the ground) and rather enjoys poking at me with such things. But I decided, as is my nature, to give him a full accounting of my views anyway. He simply couldn’t understand how I could object to raising taxes on the rich, because he knows I am most certainly not rich.

But like so many in our nation he really fails to realize that whenever you raise taxes on the rich, the only people you hurt are the middle class, folks like me. Ok, bear with me here folks, your going to have to throw out everything you’ve ever been told about class politics from both sides of the aisle here because it’s all bunk.

Total bunk. Ok, lets look at the bottom end of the spectrum. Since we’ve all heard about Joe the Plumber, lets examine the case of Al the grocery store owner. Ok, Al owns a nice little grocery store in a small town. He’s at the bottom end of the rich scale, making lets say just a little over $200,000 a year (or whatever cutoff point their care to use in classifying who’s rich)

As with most of us, Al the Grocer has a tendency to live as his means allow. He has a nice wife, 3 great kids and a beautiful home. Then the tax man steps up and informs Al that his taxes are going up next year. Sorry Al, now you have to pay an extra 10% of what you make to the government. That’s patriotic, after all.

Ok, now what do you think Al is going to do? Do you think he’s going to open up his own wallet, maybe run the risk of losing that really nice house? Tell his kids, sorry, no good Christmas for you this year, Uncle Sam needs that cash and it’s our patriotic duty to fork it over? Or do you think that Al is going to take option B. The next day he drives down to the store he owns, and raises the prices on most everything in the store a few pennies to help compensate for the new taxes? You guessed it, Al is raising his prices.

But it doesn’t stop there. See Al buys all his stuff from a huge corporation that makes and deliverers food. They just got socked with higher taxes too. So a short time after Al raises his prices a bit, they raises the wholesale price of everything there selling to Al, for much the same reason. See, they have to pay that tax increase too, and if they don’t pass it along to Al then their bottom line suffers. So they increase the prices there charging Al, Al increases his prices again and guess who gets to pay for all those new taxes on the rich? Yup.. you got it, us poor dumb working stiffs get stuck with the bill, again.

Ok, but it’s only a couple extra pennies here and there right? Time to sit down and seriously do the math folks. You’ve got two types of taxes out there, straight forward pay it right to the government type taxes, and the much subtler and harder to calculate overhead expense, much like with the example of Al above.

See, when you talk about taxes, most everyone thinks only of income taxes. The money is taken out of your check over an entire year, you only file once and bang, you pay or get a refund, right? Ok, but this is in actuality only a very small portion of the actual taxes you pay to the government every year. A big chunk? Property taxes. HA! But I don’t pay property taxes! says the apartment dweller in the back row.

Sure you do. Ok, you may not get a bill directly from the government, but do you honestly think the guy or gal that owns whatever apartment your renting is paying all of the property taxes on that property by themselves out of their own pocket out of the goodness of their heart? Of course not. They are charging you and everyone else who rents an apartment from them an increased amount of rent to cover the cost of those property taxes. When property taxes go up, guess what happens to your rent. Yup.. it goes up too. This is a perfect example of how you pay hidden taxes every single day of your life.

Stop for gas? Your paying taxes on it. Stop for food! Hey, no taxes on food right? Well, not directly.. but guess what, that food wasn’t magically transported to the store. Yup, the stuff has to be trucked in. Trucks use gas. They need tires, oil, maintenance, etc, etc. When the companies that provide these goods and services are forced to raise their prices to deal with an increased tax burden, guess what happens as an end result to the price of food? Yup, it goes up. You never knew it, but every twinkie you ever bought included an overhead charge or hidden tax – yup, at least a small portion of the cash you forked over went to pay someone else's taxes. The dreaded rich, most likely.

Yup, that’s right class warriors! Every time you buy into the nonsensical argument that the government is only going to raise taxes on the rich, guess who ends up footing the bill. All of us poor schmucks in the working class. All those tax increases get passed right onto us, we just don’t notice because it’s a penny here, two cents there.

So the next time you get your income tax refund or are lucky enough not to have to pay in stop and consider that you’ve already paid a boatload in taxes besides your income tax. Every time you stopped for gas, bought a soda, pretty much every single time you open your wallet your paying somebody else's tax burden, and you never even knew it.

So when Obama does get around to rolling back the Bush tax cuts and starts raising the taxes on the rich you might want to reconsider taking to the streets in a mass demonstration of joy. The rich won’t be paying those taxes, not in the long run, you will. One shiny penny at a time. But honestly we have no one to blame but ourselves. If we stopped letting envy rule our voting habits we wouldn’t be in this mess. That’s the one downside to democracy, you get the government you deserve. And so we have.

Greetings and Salutations! Just wanted to let everyone know the site is moving to a new location: http://rconservative.spaces.l... Nothing against Tblog you understand, just a little easier to maintain the site with some of the rather outstanding utilites available from the new host provider. Hope to see you all there!

Greetings to all!

My apologies for the rather long hiatus. I wish I could say it was a bought of depression from the election results but the truth is real life reared its ugly head and I had to be away from my trusty keyboard for a while, hopefully though all those pesky real life issues have been resolved sufficiently now that I can turn my attention to more important matters, such as blogging.

I have to admit I wasnt sure if I should laugh or cry when I heard the news that our new President Elect had announced his choice for the head of the CIA, one Leon Panetta. Honestly Barrack, couldnt find anybody more qualified? Is this one of those deals where Donald Trump turned you down so you picked Panetta instead? How about Gary Coleman? At least he could go on TV and say stuff like "Whatcha talkin about Osama!". Sure, it wouldnt be any more effective in keeping us safe but at least we could get some entertainment value for the tax dollars were spending.

Well, according to the AP our President Elect has promised to make certain that his intelligence team would, and I quote, "break with Bush administration practices that he said tarnished U.S. intelligence agencies and American foreign policy".

Ok, first if we want to talk about torture lets start defining our terms. Last time my neighbor had his stereo up too loud and a ton of people over to his house I knew if I called the cops he might get a stern talking too and a request to turn the music down at best. I cant imagine that even now with all the sworn testimony I could get from witnesses to this event that my neighbor could ever be convicted of "torture" or "war crimes".

Honestly folks, torture is getting your self brutally beaten, not being forced to listen to the Clash at a volume levels much lower than your average rock concert. People routinely shell out $100 and up for concert tickets to listen to music a lot louder than the volume levels that are being described as "torture". So really we have two options here, we can get serious and admit that this particular tactic, while it certainly isnt Emily Post, simply cant be described as torture. Either that or we can start charging the terrorists being held at gitmo for tickets before blasting them with loud music. Just make sure to keep the prices reasonable, otherwise somebody in the ACLU will be forced to go after the scalpers!

And as far as this delusional hatred of the Patriot act is concerned, can anyone give me a single example of when the Patriot Act was ever used to violate the rights of any American citizen? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Can anyone name one individual in this entire nation who has had his rights abridged, who has gone to jail, indeed even been charged with anything that it turns out he was innocent of with intel gathered by using methods proscribed by the patriot act?

Ok, so I guess Barracks idea here is we have to not only play nice, we have to play super nice. We have to blow warm soft kisses and give them all great big hugs. Thats right folks, as long as were just nicer to these fanatics who want all of us dead then theyll see what wonderful people we are, and pretty soon well all be sitting around a campfire together singing Kumbaya and making smores.

I dont think anyone can deny this is exactly the sort of foreign policy technique that Carter administration was known best for, in particular his efforts in the Middle East. And as we all know thanks to Carter bending over backwards for Yassir Arrafat and the PLO we now have peace in the Middle East, and the nations of Palestine and Israel are the best of friends now as a result.

Whoops. Well, I guess the revisionist history thing only goes so far. Yes, Barracks warm and fuzzy approach to foreign policy has been tried before, and it was a dismal and complete failure. Ever wonder why?

Just imagine the response you would get from your average African American if you tried to sell them on the notion that all they had to do was be nicer to the Klu Klux Klan and then they wouldnt be so hated by that group of knuckle dragging morons. Can you just imagine trying to sell the NAACP on the notion that the hatred the KKK displays towards them is all there own fault, because they simply refuse to understand the bigots point of view? Even if they did, do you think the KKK would ever stop hating them? That, in a nut shell, is exactly why Barracks foriegn policy is doomed to failure.

Honestly folks, the stupidity level here just boggles the mind. Its time to face the simple fact that these terrorist want us all dead. All of us. Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian, they dont care. They dont give a tinkers damn about any of that. We are the infidel, and we must be destroyed.

But hey, I guess we can at least take some comfort in the thought that once they are done with the rest of us theyll turn on other Muslims. Those that see Islam as a “religion of peace” will doubtless go first, and honestly deservedly so. Sorry folks, but you had a multitude of chances to stand up and defend your religion and decry the actions of the Jihadists. You never did. You remained silent while people committed atrocities under the guise of your religion, and only spoke out when someone was treating you "unfairly" as a result. Sorry, got a lot more sympathy for a guy who gets his head cut off by fanatics than I do for sombody who was hassled by an airport security gaurd for being "suspicious". Sure, you got hassled. boo-hoo. Next time somebody cuts somebodys head off and claims that hes doing so for "Islam" if you dont stand up and scream your lungs out and tell everyone who will listen that this guy doesnt represent Islam and that these groups are the scum of the earth then I guess you deserve to get hassled at the airport.

Of course once these nutburgers get done with the "peaceful followers of islam" then all the militant groups will start going after each other, it will be Jihadist group against Jihadist group because they cant agree on really important details like who is right, the Shiites or the Sunnis.

Want to know what their arguing about? Well, it started back in 632 AD with the death of the profit Muhammad. The Shiat Ali, (meaning partisans of Ali) were firmly convinced that only a relative of Muhammad was qualified to lead the faithful, and they were pulling for there man Ali, who was the prophets cousin and son in law.

The Sunnis, on the other hand, were certain that any worthy man could lead, and they had their own choice in mind, Abu Bakir. Yup, Im not kidding. Militant groups in both sects are still killing each other today over election results that came in over 1,300 years ago. And you thought Al Gore backers were a bit testy!

So whats our bold new vision of hope and change? Why, well stop playing our stereo so loud and then these folks will certainly see reason. Yah.. that makes sense. Theyve been slaughtering each other for over 1,300 years over a minor spat about who should be in charge and then later over what time your supposed to pray or what specific ritual your supposed to perform. Hundreds of thousands of there own have been slaughtered on both sides as a result of minor differences of opinion, but theyll surely be nice to total infidels like us who disagree with them about nearly everything if we only treat them a bit nicer. Right.

Well, hopefully we wont have to endure another attack that costs us thousands of innocent civilian lives before we wake up again and realize that you cant reason with unreasonable people.